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President Obama's diplomatic effort to head off a violent breakup of Ukraine ran aground Saturday as a top U.N. envoy was blocked from a peace mission to the disputed region of Crimea and Russia's parliament, or Duma, approved a request by President Vladimir Putin to send military forces to Ukraine in support of pro-Russian Ukrainians.
The White House and other European governments have been pressing for international mediation in Ukraine, saying it offered the only hope of reaching a bloodless resolution to the crisis. During a closed-door session of the U.N. Security Council Friday, Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, proposed the U.N. send special envoy Robert Serry to the Crimea to see if he could persuade pro-Russian leaders there to make peace with authorities in Kiev.
"The United States calls for an urgent international mediation mission to the Crimea to begin to deescalate the situation, and facilitate productive peaceful political dialogue among all Ukrainian parties," Power told reporters Friday after floating the initiative. "What's important is that it be seen as independent and credible."
President Barack Obama met with his nattional security team on Saturday "to receive an update on the situation in Ukraine and discuss potential policy options," said a senior administration official. The White House planned to provide further updates later in the day.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki moon on Friday instructed Serry -- a former Dutch ambassador to Ukraine who currently serves as the U.N. special envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process -- to travel immediately to Crimea.
But Crimea's pro-Russian authorities have refused to extend an invitation to Serry, according to a diplomatic source tracking the peace process. Crimea's newly appointed prime minister has asked Russia for help. Serry, meanwhile, has been unable able to secure a flight to Crimea, where Russian-backed forces have seized control of the main airports, according to diplomatic sources.
Ban's spokesman, Martin Nesirky, told reporters at U.N. headquarters Saturday that the diplomatic mission to Crimea had been called off for now. Serry "had wanted to visit Crimea but this proved to be logistically difficult and therefore he has opted to go to Geneva as initially planned, and this will be to brief the [U.N.] Secretary General," Nesirky said.
The U.N. chief, meanwhile, is planning to discuss the crisis in Ukraine with President Putin Saturday, Nesirky said. Nesirky declined to comment on the Russian parliament's decision to authorized military intervention in Ukraine. But, he said, "The secretary general is gravely concerned" at the deteriorating situation in Ukraine, and he urged "the full respect for and preservation of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine."
European governments expressed alarm about the Russian decision to intervene. Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague said his government summoned the Russian ambassador to the foreign office to "register our deep concern" and that he would travel to Ukraine Sunday to show Britain's support for the new government in Ukraine." Hague said he has urged Russian foreign minister in a phone conversation Saturday to take steps "to calm this dangerous situation" and to participate in political talks with Ukraine's government in Kiev.
The Russian decision to seek parliamentary approval for military intervention followed a call for help from Crimea's Prime Minister Serkiy Aksyonov to bring "peace and tranquility."
Putin defended his action on the grounds that it was essential to act to protect the lives of Russian nationals.
Ukraine's interim president, Oleksandr Turchynov, said Moscow's decision to send troops to Ukraine was illegal. "Russian military intervention in Ukraine is clearly against international law and principles of European security," he said Saturday.
The United States plans to renew its push at the United Nations today to persuade Russia to support a diplomatic mission in Crimea Saturday at the second emergency meeting of the Security Council in two days. But Russia's U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, has been dismissive of U.N. peace efforts, suggesting it might be better if Serry stuck to the Middle East. "We are concerned about the Middle East peace process, you know. We are concerned that he has been pushed into this thing," Churkin said. "As a matter of principle we are against this sort of imposed mediation."
One European diplomat at the Security Council said that the deadlock in the council was growing eerily reminiscent of the darkest days of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary in 1956. Today, as then, the Security Council has little diplomatic leverage to prevent Russia, which enjoys veto power, from using force in eastern Ukraine.
Churkin seemed to take offense at suggestions that Moscow was throwing its weight around. Asked late Friday Whether his country intended to intervene militarily in Ukraine to achieve its own political aims, he considered the question and then laughed mockingly. "Really, really. Even the question is aggravating."